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“Matty is a terrific player and I have got a really good relationship with him. Some reports earlier in the summer said Rowett fell out with Vydra and Rowett fell out with his agent, but nothing could be further from the truth.

“The numbers in that deal were always big and we needed to strengthen in other areas. I brought in Benik Afobe and we were short of wingers.”

But with half-an-eye on the possibility of signing another forward, he laid down the gauntlet to his existing strikers like Mame Diouf, Peter Crouch and Saido Berahino by adding: “We have got a lot to quality up front and it’s up to me to make that quality work... or go down a different route.”

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“Unfortunately for us, he just felt his hamstring in the Macclesfield game and has been re-habbing since. He’s still at the training ground working hard and he’s a really good guy.”

Stoke, who kick off at Leeds next Sunday, have won only one of their six pre-season fixtures, two of which were only over 45 minutes, and have only scored one in the last four, but Rowett remains optimistic because the pre-season programme in Germany wasn’t his choice and he has been deprived of World Cup players for long spells.

But he admitted: “We’ve probably got another two or three weeks of work to get us up to speed.”